Monday, July 11, 2011

News items and comments

Piers Akerman – Monday, July 11, 11 (06:31 am)

Not since the notorious Loans Affair contributed to the Whitlam’s government’s timely downfall has there been a fraud attempted on the scale of Julia Gillard’s great carbon tax con.

A former student of mine wrote "i honestly feel like a victim, like being in a nightmare and watching all this bad stuff happen yet not be able to intervene. Like watching vikings rape and plunder and being frozen. All this chaos & destruction around and feeling helpless as there is no one who can help you."

They run a small business in Canberra, a patisserie. But I am sure their concern is not solely for their business, they have a young family too.

My reply "I have lived through this before. You will survive it. Sometimes it sounds sarcastic to say this is what makes Australia Great. It will become an object lesson in the future. We need to resist it, but we can do that without losing our heads."

Piers Akerman – Saturday, July 09, 11 (08:33 pm)

Or think about it this way: In a non election year in which the deficit is $50 billion and the government has promised a surplus in two years, the government needs a source of revenue which will achieve it. That means no compensation for the poor. That means each dollar for the UN must mean another dollar for the surplus and another to keep the creditors happy. It also means the government is lying now about its plans. I note that when the government claimed it made a mistake in saying the tax would not happen, it had already drawn up plans to execute it.

I absolutely agree with your remarks, and have been trying to get this over to various people I am in contact with. However, lots are reticent to even express an opinion, one way or another. This is extremely worrying, as we seem to be developing a “Stasi” mentality, as adopted by East Germany where you couldn’t trust anyone, even your family.

What a disgraceful government we have, together with certain members of the media, Get-up, Greens etc. Thank goodness for Piers Ackerman, Andrew Bolt and a few others who keep hitting back.

overtheBS replied to DD BallSun 10 Jul 11 (08:54am)

Some figures for you “Stripped $2 Billion from families by freezing payments”net debt is over $100 Billion, over $10 Billion more than Keating left, Over 3 & a half years this Govt has increased debt by $150 Billion, 12.3 Million taxpayers in Aus & every taxpayer owes an extra $12,000 plus on this Govts credit card, In the past year alone they have borrowed $135 Million dollars a day & in the next few years Australians will be paying $18 Million dollars a day in interest payments on those borrowings, am sure I heard they are close to the debt ceiling of $200 Billion & want to increase it to $250 Billion !!Since Labor came into their shared power arrangement Electricity has gone up 51%, Water 46%, Gas 30%. etcNote you also live in NSW & would be aware that since July 1st there have been further cost of living increases in Electricity, Gas, Water etc etc etc I lost count after the guy on the radio reading them out hit $423 worth of extra payments (then didn’t hear anymore as I was banging my head against the wall because the money tree in the backyard died).Also Nobody seems to have taken into account the extra GST Bonus that will come with this “ Carbon Tax we have to have” our last Electricity bill alone had an extra GST amount of $30 plus dollars, over & above the preceding bill.Glad we were’nt the only ones that noticed the “Carbon Tax we have to have” had obviously been well & truly on the drawing board before it was announced.Even if this Govt achieves a minute surplus the Net Debt is still going to be in the Billions…As each day passes we have firmed our opinion that “The Greatest Moral Challenge to our kids & possibly Great Grandchildren is THIS GOVT”

Miranda Devine – Monday, July 11, 11 (12:00 pm)

OPPOSITION environment spokesman Greg Hunt dropped by the blog this morning before delivering his response to the government’s carbon tax announcement at a lunchtime speech to the Lowy Institute.

His two main points:

1) The difference between the European and Australian carbon abatement programs: Europe’s ETS costs $1 per person. Australia’s carbon tax will cost $400 per person.“The Australian carbon tax will be 18 times larger in dollar terms than the European scheme to date,” he says.

2) Australia’s carbon tax means a huge outflow of funds overseas to buy carbon permits: From $3.5 billion in 2020, blowing out to $23 billion by 2050.Hunt quotes eminent regulatory economist Henry Ergas on the carbon tax: “Each man, woman and child in this country will be transferring $600 a year to foreign owners of permits. Whatever one may think of those transfers, they mean the government’s compensation promise is vastly underfunded.”And for what? Australia can abandon its cheap power advantage, close down all its coal-fired power stations and sink into the ocean and the earth’s temperature will not change one jot.

Meanwhile, we keep exporting our coal to China so it can benefit from cheap power and emit whatever it likes.

Hunt’s speech at least provides a coherent economic deconstruction of the carbon tax.Here is and edited preview copy:

Miranda Devine – Monday, July 11, 11 (08:59 am)

“If they’re going to give us money back, what’s the point of collecting it and passing it on to us in the first place? It’s just sending the money round and round in circles,” said mother-of-three Keryn Griffith…Who just so happens to live in Greg Combet’s coal-intensive electorate of Charlton, south of Newcastle.“If they’re going to give you some sort of reimbursement back, then what’s the point of taxing us in the first place?” asked mother-of-three Melanie Neilsen (pictured above)… Who also is a constituent of the Climate Change Minister.People in safe Labor seats understand as well as anyone that churning taxpayer dollars wastes money.

Sometimes, in a classroom, a teacher might say “There are no stupid questions” or “there are no stupid people” and that is a truth which requires explanation. Questions need to be asked allowing informed decisions to be made. In fact not asking questions is a sign of stupidity. People that get labelled as stupid are usually ignorant, and when informed won’t be stupid. There is an assumption of good will and integrity. That the reason for the behavior or the question is obvious and deviousness is not at work.Gillard lied about not planning for a tax on Carbon Dioxide prior to the election, as there were plans that had been submitted to treasury (I understand). So why would we believe this merry go round is not merely a way of separating the victims from their money?I like your assertion, Miranda and I appreciated the explanation.

Miranda Devine – Sunday, July 10, 11 (10:48 pm)

IF you ever doubted that it is inner-city elites with their protected jobs, black skivvies and moral vanity who forced an unwanted carbon tax on the rest of Australia, then a crowing Adam Bandt was there to set you straight yesterday.

At a press conference in Canberra, the Greens MP for Melbourne, who holds the balance of power, applauded his electorate for electing him.

“I want to acknowledge the great [decision] the people of Melbourne took and the national and world importance that had by voting Green at the last election.”

This time the Greens weren’t at the lectern with the Prime Minister when she announced details of her carbon tax. But their imprimatur was all over it.

“I’m very very pleased, very proud as leader of the Greens,” said Bob Brown. “… It’s just a fact of life that we’re getting this outcome because we were here.”

Julia Gillard’s press conference was all soothing reassurance and electoral bribery, funded by an extra $4.3billion from taxpayers on top of the carbon tax which Treasurer Wayne Swan still insists is “broadly budget neutral”.

But the Greens’ press conference was the red fanged gloat of victory.

“The time for uncertainty is over. We are moving to a new future,” said Greens Senator Christine Milne, as the chills went down sensible spines.

Milne is particularly enamoured of the Climate Change Authority, one of six new government bureaucracies, modelled on a UK committee which bound the British government to cut emissions by 50 per cent by 2025 – ten times what Australia has pledged by 2020.

Forget the piddling target Gillard has set. “We will see much greater abatement than anybody has actually recognized at this time,” said Milne.

“This today is a world leading outcome” said Brown. “If you look at equivalent countries, Russia, Canada, China, New Zealand, the United States, Australia has now broken out of the do-little [position] to become a world leader.”

Yes, a world leader of lemmings jumping off cliffs.

The Greens only have power so long as every lower house ALP member gives it to them. They won’t survive an election. Every time a Green gloats every ALP head nods in agreement.It is maddening that all that expenditure is to limit plant food. Plants sustain all of us.

Miranda Devine – Sunday, July 10, 11 (07:33 pm)

YOU’D think the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union would be barracking for workers in the industries hardest hit by the carbon tax. But instead the CFMEU has come out as one of the tax’s chief spruikers.

Not content with having betrayed forestry workers who used to be its members back when they used to have jobs, or becoming the largest single donor to left-wing activist group GetUp, now the CFMEU is playing the anti-Catholic card.

The union has authorised a 40-second carbon tax ad, played on commercial TV yesterday, which features no fewer than eight religious crosses to illustrate its point that Tony Abbott is one of “The Great Deniers of History”.

There is Galileo trying to tell a cross-festooned monk the world is not flat and Jesus being crucified while Roman soldiers say it’s the last we’ll hear of him – presumably a get-out-of-jail-free card for when they are accused of anti-Christian sentiment.

But imagery is everything, and juxtaposing the Opposition Leader, a former trainee priest, against mediaeval Catholic imagery and Christian crosses galore is the most blatant dog-whistling religious bigotry we have seen in this country in a generation.

It fits with the latest Labor party attack ad which features a cartoon Abbott looking through his wardrobe, which includes red Speedos, a cycling jersey and – camera lingers - brown clerical robes with a big red cross around the neck.

How Catholic members of the ALP and CFMEU will respond to such naked bigotry only time will tell. But it shows how desperate are the pro-carbon tax forces to win this battle.

Miranda Devine – Sunday, July 10, 11 (07:21 am)

IS this what Labor grandee John Faulkner meant when he urged Labor to embrace “progressive movements” after the last election?

Allow the Labor party to be taken over by a ragtag bunch of greens and kooky independents, with policy endorsed by the shadowy left-wing activist group, Get Up, which uses apparent blackmail to enforce its wishes on a reluctant populace?

While simultaneously betraying the workers on which Labor built its brand, in the once loyal coal, steel and manufacturing electorates which will be crippled by the carbon tax?

All the while destroying the economic underpinnings which made this country great?

That isn’t the path to political revival but electoral oblivion for Labor, and social disruption for the country.

This is the direction Julia Gillard is taking Labor. It will reach its full expression today when she announces details of the carbon tax which she expressly ruled out before the last election and which opinion polls show most Australians do not want.

I am not an ALP supporter but I was raised one. I won’t miss the party, but I grieve for what is lost because of the party. I feel the Liberals do a good job being fair for all people. Their politics is progressive without being captive to progressive-ists. The criticism of the Liberal party by former leaders like Fraser and Hewson are illustrative of how the Liberal party has managed to tread the middle path without turning to the right or left. But the Liberal Party needs a robust opponent who wont take the eye off the ball in keeping them centred on middle Australia.

Over twenty years ago I despised the Liberals and had no reason to do so, but did so. I was challenged by my dad to listen to what the various parties said and did, and evaluate how I felt by wether they fulfilled their promise. I have not heard an ALP leader fulfill a promise. I have heard some outrageous things. I recall One Victorian Premier wannabe claim that people, not freeways, were what was important. He won the election and bulldozed homes to build a road with red lights. Because it had a red light it wasn’t deemed a freeway and so the premier said he had kept his promise. They are that petty.

Debating how to improve education, the writers focus only on the relative merits of testing, various funding formulas, and class size while ignoring the fact that each government school has a captive pool of students, and that government schools get their revenues not from paying customers but from taxed property owners.

This debate is as useful to the cause of education reform as would be a debate on how to rescue occupants of a burning building that focuses only on the relative merits of the various sorts of fire-retardant clothing that these occupants might be given while ignoring the possibility of breaking openings in the building to create escape routes.

Tim Blair – Monday, July 11, 11 (04:36 am)

Andrew Bolt – Monday, July 11, 11 (12:54 pm)

Brendan O’Neill is right:

ACROSS the world, miles of column inches and hours of television and radio debate have been devoted to the closure of the News of the World. And yet the gravity of what occurred last week has not been grasped anywhere.

A newspaper of 168 years’ standing, a public institution patronised by millions of people, has been wiped from existence, not as a result of some jackbooted military intrusion or intolerant executive decree or coup d’etat, but under pressure from so-called liberal campaigners who felt disgust for the newspaper’s culture. History should record this as a dark time indeed for press freedom.

In a civilised society we tend to associate the pressured shutting down of a media outlet, with some large corrosion of public or democratic values. We look on the extinction of a paper for non-commercial reasons, whatever the paper’s sins, as a sad thing, normally the consequence of a tyrannical force stamping its boot over the upstarts of the media…

Many of those politically sensitive commentators who shake their heads in fury on hearing that a newspaper in a place such as Belarus has closed down have barely been able to contain their excitement about the self-immolation of a tabloid in Britain…

That is likely to be the end result of the hysterical crusade against “evil” tabloids: a situation where the authorities speak “power to truth”. British journalism is having its cojones removed. There will less risk-taking, muck-raking, daring. It is a sad day for press freedom when all journalists are put under extreme pressure to be good boys and girls, like those in the “proper press”.

I’ll add two things.

First, the “proper press” has had no compunction about publishing material that was stolen and which potententially put innocent lives at risk. Think Wikileaks.

Second, what worries me is that News of the World was closed not merely by liberal campaigners disgusted by the paper’s culture, but possibly by News executives disgusted by it, too.

I do not mean disgusted only by the phone hacking allegations, which are indeed appalling and which I have repeatedly deplored already. I mean disgusted - or, more accurately, embarrassed - by the cheerily iconoclastic, working-class culture of News of the World.

Is the News empire at risk of selling out the Murdoch spirit that has helped to democratise the press and challenge the smug group-think of the Left? Is Fox News next?

Walcha wool producer Ted Fenech said there was a shortage of meat in some countries and he wondered how the Gillard government planned to supply food locally and for export if it was encouraging farmers to plant trees.

According to Treasury, our annual emissions are 578 million tonnes a year. By 2020, with a carbon tax and an ETS, our annual emissions will be 621 million tonnes. The difference is that without the tax, those emissions would have risen to 679 million tonnes. And this was always the case. So, while the government can claim it will reduce emissions by a net 50 million tonnes because of the carbon tax, our total annual emissions will still be higher in 2020 than they are now.

Even with a carbon tax, Australia will not be able to find enough domestic reductions to meet its target of reducing annual emissions by 5 per cent on 2000 levels and instead will have to buy carbon farming credits, new renewables and go to Europe to buy 100 million tonnes of abatement schemes to reach our target.

UPDATE

And how futile is all this posturing? Here’s Professor Graham Farquhar, a warmist from Australian National University Climate Change Institute:

THE aim of the carbon tax is to reduce Australian emissions by five per cent. In turn the aim of that reduction is to put political or economic pressure to encourage or shame other countries to reduce their emissions by five per cent.

The main climate economic models show that to achieve the much discussed goal of keeping temperature increases under 2C, we would need a global tax on carbon emissions that would start at nearly $100 per tonne and increase to more than $3700 per tonne by the end of the century.

Federal Health Department data reveal that 25 of the 64 new clinics are being set up in towns and suburbs that are not designated as a “district of workforce shortage”.

The clinics are privately owned and operated, but receive government grants of up to $12.5m for building work in a scheme that will cost taxpayers a total of $528m… The Australian Medical Association claims many of the new centres will cannibalise existing doctors’ surgeries by poaching their patients and staff.

UPDATE

All those billions on expensive and unreliable new green power, while the Government casually kills the cheap coal-fired power that we so badly need:

JULIA Gillard’s top energy adviser has warned some major power stations are likely to be in “severe” financial distress under the carbon tax, even with the government’s multi-billion-dollar compensation package, leaving consumers facing potential blackouts.

This is also likely to drive up prices and add to the volatility on the national electricity market that supplies $10 billion worth of power a year to eight million end-users, the advice finds.

On top of this, commercial and industrial customers could have difficulty securing adequate energy supply contracts to underpin their operations and investment. There were also questions about how to replace the most polluting coal-fired power stations that the government will pay to shut down.

As the energy sector reeled after learning that a “significant” number of power generators would receive no compensation, the producer of 16 per cent of Queensland’s power, InterGen, said its future was under a cloud.

But not even Gillard dares to claim the tax she’s finally unveiled will stop any of that warming, or change the climate in any way.

Never has she said by what amount her tax would change the temperature - because it won’t. It can’t.

Even the Greens’ deputy leader, Christine Milne, admits this $23-a-tonne price on carbon dioxide emissions “will not be high enough to drive the transition to renewable (energy)”.

No wonder. From sheer gutlessness, the Government has exempted many of the worst “polluters”. There’s no tax on petrol, no tax on farmers and their gassy animals, and huge handouts to keep some of our coal mines, smelters and power stations going.

And, of course, the tax is just half what global warming adviser Professor Ross Garnaut said was needed, and less than a third of what the Greens wanted.

So what’s the point of it?

If you really think man’s emissions are heating the world catastrophically, you should be outraged - unless you’re hoping the sneaky Government is just softening us up for the full whammy, after the election.

But even then our sacrifice would achieve nothing, because there is no way anything Australia does can change the climate.

“There’s no disagreement in the scientific community that this will have no impact on climate,” said Lindzen, professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“It would be nothing for practical purposes and it would be nothing if the whole world did the same.”

Of course, the rest of the world is not doing the same. Not a single other nation has a national carbon dioxide tax, so either we’re smarter than every other country ... or Gillard is dumber than every other leader. You choose.

Oh, and Prof Lindzen also added that since 1995 there had been no global warming that could be distinguished from natural variability. The theory man’s gases are heating the world dangerously is falling to bits.

The idea a whole economy is being deliberately slowed down for an utterly useless gesture seems so unimaginable, a folly perhaps, explains why few analysts even dare to ask if this tax will do a single thing for the planet.

So here we are, discussing instead whether a tax that costs $4 billion more over the next four years than it will collect will really leave the average household 20 cents a week better off, as the Government says. Twenty cents.

Just to enter such debate makes you complicit in the madness of pretending to do something about something you pretend is a threat. It’s like arguing whether unicorns are white or more a creamy colour.

Andrew Bolt – Monday, July 11, 11 (06:27 am)

Julia Gillard has made a terrible start to her campaign to sell her tax. This patronising delivery, with painted smiles and talk of money trees, treats voters as children and will backfire terribly. Whoever is advising her should be fired.

Did you know, for example, that “getting rid of the second fridge could save us around $180”? It’s right there in yet another of yesterday’s carbon communiqués. Forget getting government out of our bedrooms. Get it out of our garages.

“It’s all right for greenies to say this carbon tax has to happen, but we can’t all hug trees for a living,” said Brett Withers, who has worked as an industrial cleaning contractor in the steelworks for 20 years. “It might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. If the tax comes in, this area will be devastated. It’s not just the steel industry - it’s the butcher, the hairdresser and the baker. Everyone will suffer.”

There is a modern, effective way of ending these disputes. Let the kids do an online, straightforward test. Then allocate to schools grades to dispense among their students

An Education Department official said Sunday that the department is "concerned" about the wave of investigations and allegations regarding cheating on standardized tests in several school systems, but stressed that most schools are "doing the right thing."

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Obama, what specifically will $4 trillion achieve that won't be done better by your resigning?

Partisan tensions were flaring ahead of a critical summit Sunday evening at the White House, where aides say President Obama plans to make one last push for a major deficit-reduction deal amid doubts on both sides.

The ALP lack integrity and they are not dealing with the issue of Hamidur Rahman.

ALL future ALP candidates will be subject to "detailed financial, behavioural and police checking" before being allowed to run, after a review of Labor's disastrous NSW election result presented to th..

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About Me

I'm author of History in a Year by the Conservative Voice aka History of the World in a Year by the Conservative Voice.

I'm the Conservative Voice.

I'm looking to make contact with those who might use my skill.

I have an m-audio mobile pre amp fed by the audiotechnica 2041sp condensor mic pack. Prior to 15/4/06, I'd used a Shure sm-58 that required a nuclear blast to register a sound or the internal mic of my aged imac, which has a penchance to recording my breathing. I also used a Griffin itrip, until the community convinced me it was not hiding my talent as well as the other mics.

I am a Writer and an occasional Math Teacher (Sir, what's the occasion?). I like to sing, having no instrumental talent (cannot even clap in time, and yes, I'm aware singing badly IS obnoxious).

I have performed the finale to Les Miserables before an audience of 500. I have also sung before a similar audience (students, parents) renditions of 'I Will' (Beatles), 'Mr Cairo' (Jon Vangelis) and 'I am Australian' (Seekers). Now I seek another profession because the audience hates me ..